Knowing Me Knowing You

I’m not sure Emergenetics and Meetings of the Minds workshops were what Benny and Bjorn had in mind when they penned their smash hit in the mid-seventies (younger readers may associate the title more with Alan Partridge), but I can’t think of a better one liner to sum up the purpose of the three workshops, Awaken Communications has just completed for our IT services client MSCa group.

Emergenetics is one of the newer profiling tools to have emerged from the US and thanks to the efforts of First Ascent, the UK license holder, is beginning to get some traction over here. There are at least three reasons why it is popular:

It’s credible. The tool was tested on over 10,000 people before the final product was completed. The most common reaction when people are debriefed on their Emergenetics profile relates to its accuracy. This was the reaction of one of the delegates last week:

“Okay, I was a bit sceptical about this, but…. wow…you got me”.

It’s easy to get your head round. Four thinking attributes and three behavioural attributes, which are neatly summarised on one page, viewed together, not in isolation, to create a picture of how you are wired to approach the world.

It’s comes from a positive perspective only. There are no highs or lows. No strong or weak. Instead, participants are located on a spectrum. The emphasis is on celebrating who you are, not trying to tell you who you need to be. The message is: take what you’ve got and work with it, for the benefit of you and your team.

Interactivity is at the heart of the Meetings of the Minds workshops. Delegates spend most of their time on their feet, working with colleagues to explore the power of the profiles. As a facilitator, it was hugely rewarding, for my colleague Warwick and I, to see the predicted profiles being acted out in front of us and the light bulbs going off in the minds of the participants. “I get it” cried Russell, the big Scot in sales. “I need you to help me get the best proposals to my clients”, he roared turning to one of his more analytically inclined colleagues. Russell, happens to have a large social preference and is third third expressive. Not a great surprise to his colleagues, it must be said. But here’s the key: to what extent will confirmation of what the team instinctively knew about each other, combined with new insights, mean in terms of greater collaboration and enhanced productivity going forward? That’s what it’s all about.

When having fun leads to better results, you know you are on to something.

For more information on how Emergenetics could improve your team dynamic, contact Nick Wake: nick@awaken-comms.co.uk